“I am always glad to think and write about the gallant old First Kentucky Cavalry. It was as brave a body of men as any officer had the good fortune to command. If I sent them into action oftener than I should have done, it was because I knew they would be equal to any heroic duty which might be imposed upon them.”
Lt. General Joseph Wheeler.
Commander of Calvalry, Army of Tennessee
I am a student of the Civil War. I have a place in my heart for all of the Northern and Southern soldiers that fought and died on their home soil for their beliefs.
I guess I am a southern at heart since I will always have a special place for the Orphan Brigade. They were a group of fighting men that did their duty without question and was led by one of the most colorful and beloved generals, Benjamin Hardin Helm.
John Hunt Morgan was also part of this Brigade. That in itself is another story for another time.
The orphan Brigade, was formed in October 1861 from a group of Kentucky units that mustered into confederate service in Northern Tennessee and Southern Kentucky in the summer and fall of 1861. Due to kentucky’s neutrality policy in the summer of 1861, men wishing to join the confederacy traveled to Camp Boone and Burnett, near Clarksville, Tennesse. It was at thse two camps the Orphan Brigade was formed.
Why the name “Orphan Brigade"?
- Apparently a post-war invention by the veterans.
- Orphan Birgade generally known as the Kentucky Brigade or the First Kentucky Birgade.
- General Breckinridge statement following the distratous assult Murfressboro, he stated:“My Poor Orphan Birgade! They have cut it to pieces!”
- A general situation faced by the Kentucky Confederates. When they left the state in February 1862, they were never able to return as a unit during the war. Cut off from supplies, recruiots, and even mail from their homes behind enemy lines, the Kentuckians began to see themselves “Orphans” whose only home was the Confederate Army.
Some interesting facts about the Orphan Brigade.
- The oldest of kentucky’s calvery regiments in Confederate service.
- It’s first commander, Benjamin Hardin Helm, was the brothern-in-law of President Abraham Lincoln.
- It’s men were the first Kentucky cavalrymen to respond to the call for service to the Confederate States.
- The Orphan Brigade served to the very end, as President Jefferson Davis’s guard when he was captured in Georgia.
- Served with the Army of Tennessee under General Joseph Wheeler and General Nathan Bedford Forrest
A Short history of Benjamin Hardin Helm
On September 20th, 1863 , the Helm family members living in Elizabethtown were still blissfully unaware of the tragedy that had befallen their family. The firstborn son of Gov. John LaRue Helm and his wife, Lucinda Barbour Hardin, the noble Ben Hardin Helm, had succumbed to wounds suffered on the bloody field of Chickamauga, but word of his death would not reach his family here for three more weeks.
Ben Hardin Helm, who although born at his grandfather' home in Bardstown was raised in Hardin Co., had been educated at West Point, graduating in 1851 as brevet 2nd Lt. His original intention of following a military career was abandoned after little more than a year and he instead turned to the study and practice of law, attending both Harvard and the University of Louisville. First practicing in Elizabethtown with his father, he then entered into a law partnership with his cousin, Martin Hardin Cofer.
From 1855 to 1856, Helm represented the people of Hardin County in the state legislature and it was while serving in that body that he met and married Emilie Todd of Lexington, a union that would last even beyond his death.
At the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and the Confederacy, Ben Hardin Helm weighed his actions carefully. Although there could be no real doubt in which directions his sympathies lay, his strong sense of honor and duty kept him from acting impulsively. He would do nothing that might harm Kentucky's fragile neutrality as long as there was the slightest chance it might succeed, but once convinced of the futility of such a course, he moved with determination, organizing the First Kentucky Cavalry and presenting it to Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston on Oct. 19, 1861. Ben Hardin Helm entered Confederate service with the rank of Col., but less than 6 months later was promoted to Brigadier General.
After the mortal wounding of General Hanson at Murfreesboro and the unexpected death of Col. Robert Paxton Trabue in Richmond, Kentucky Confederates learned that Gen. Ben Hardin Helm had been ordered to take command of the 1st Kentucky Brigade. He was accepted completely by the men, who had implicit faith in his soldiership and according to Ed Porter Thompson of the 6th Kentucky, "loved him like a brother." They nicknamed him "the gentle general" and loyally thought no other officer his equal. In this they were right.
On the morning of Sept. 20, 1863, General Helm approached the day's battle calmly, laughing and joking as he mounted his horse for the attack. Only the purest in heart and spirit can face the enemy's bullets with a smile. Leading his brave Kentuckians forward, the General waved his sword toward the LaFayette Road. A short time later he was shot from his horse by a sniper bullet.
The doctors gave him immediate attention but after examining the wound and realizing that the bullet had passed through his liver, they were gravely silent.
Gen. Helm asked quietly, "Is there hope?" and reluctantly came the reply, "My dear General, there is no hope."
As the battle of Chickamauga raged on and his gallant Kentuckians continued to pour out their blood on Georgia's blood-red soil, General Helm lay suffering and silent, preparing himself for death. That evening, as the firing ceased and shouts were heard in the distance he roused himself to ask the outcome of the fight. Upon being told that the day belonged to the Confederates, his eyes glowed with satisfaction for just a moment and he whispered the single word, "Victory!" He lived but another hour or two, dying with the satisfaction that his men had fought bravely and that their efforts had been rewarded by victory.
He could not know (and we are grateful that he did not), the enormous price paid by the Kentucky brigade for that victory and the irreplaceable men, like himself, who were lost to the Cause forever on the banks of the "River of Death".
Mrs. Helm, who was visiting in Selma, Alabama, barely arrived in Atlanta in time for her husband's funeral which was held in St. Paul's Episcopal Church. She remained a week longer as a guest of Col. Dabney, in whose home the General's body had been prepared for burial.
Then she set about the task of raising her children as her husband would have expected of her.
She never remarried but wore mourning for "the love of her life' as long as she lived.....another 67 years.
General Breckinridge wrote Mrs. Helm after her husband's death and said "He loved them and they loved him", speaking of the soldiers of the Orphan Brigade.
General Helm's memory was preserved by his men as well as his widow. In 1884, members of the Kentucky Brigade, now known as "the Orphan Brigade" traveled to Atlanta to oversee the disinterment of the General's remains. He was reburied in Elizabethtown Kentucky in his family's cemetery near the father whose heart had broken at this death. Confederate Veterans served as his pallbearers, who were selected by General Joe H. Lewis.
The cache container is not really a micro, let just say that it is a macro. It is a round water sample bottle approximately 5-6"x1/2-3/4" round. The cache is well hidden.
Hope you enjoy this cache as much as I enjoyed researching and hiding it.
Be Safe. Good Caching. Hope To Meet You On The Trail Someday.
BassetSlave